By Rahul Kumar
Five days after he was picked up from his home in Bhawanipatna, Odisha, Dr Randall Sequeira spoke to Karmrath from Rayagada Sub-Jail on Wednesday. Our reporter was denied a face-to-face meeting and spoke to him over the telephone. Randall’s first question was not about himself.
“Have you started the Sijimali water story?” he asked.
Our reporter was to start work on that story for Karmrath next week, with Randall’s help. Instead, Randall has been in jail since 17 October, along with Laxman Naik, a Dalit leader of the Ma Mati Mali Suraksha Manch. The movement has been fighting Vedanta’s bauxite mine in the Sijimali hills of Rayagada and Kalahandi for three years. He did not sound nervous. Our reporter said it felt as though they were talking at Randall’s home, not across a jail telephone.
“I was picked up from my home without being shown any papers or identification. I asked them whether I was being detained or arrested, but they did not give me any answer. I was taken from one place to another for nearly four hours. I was then kept under arrest for approximately 16 hours and produced before the court after around 18 hours.”
He said he was made to sleep on the bare floor that first night.
“I had brought three books with me, but I am not even being allowed to read them.”
He is not allowed a pen or paper either. He asked that he be treated as a political prisoner and allowed books and writing material. He asked what was going on outside. He said he had heard nothing since he was brought in. Our reporter told him about the news reports and social media posts on his arrest. He sounded glad to hear it. He wants people to know what is happening to him. Karmrath could not speak to Laxman Naik, who is in the same jail.
The night of 16 October
What Randall told us lines up with the account the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) put out on Wednesday. PUCL says police came in two jeeps at about 10:45 pm, many of them in plain clothes, and walked into Randall’s house in Bhawanipatna, where Laxman was also staying. They took both men’s phones and drove them to the Town Police Station. From 6 am the next morning until 6:30 pm, PUCL says, their lawyers and families had no idea where they were. That evening, they were produced before the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate in Rayagada and sent to 15 days of judicial custody.
The official record tells a different story. The arrest notice sent to Randall’s home on the afternoon of 17 October records his arrest at 10 am that day, according to a civil society statement published on Countercurrents. It says nothing about the night before. If he was picked up at 10:45 pm, as PUCL says, that leaves about 11 hours of custody on no record. Laxman’s family says they received no notice at all.
The Campaign Against State Repression says neither man was given an arrest memo or told why he was being held. PUCL says that breaks Article 22(1) of the Constitution, which gives anyone arrested the right to know why and to speak to a lawyer, and goes against Supreme Court rulings in D.K. Basu, Pankaj Bansal and Prabir Purkayastha.
Not in the FIR
Both men have been arrested in Kashipur Police Station Case No. 85/2026, filed over what happened in Kantamal village on 6 and 7 April. The FIR names 26 people and more than 100 unnamed others. Randall and Laxman are not among the 26. The police accept this. “Randall and Naik were not named in the FIR, but their involvement was found during subsequent investigation,” an officer told PTI.
They face charges including attempt to murder, rioting and offences under the Arms Act, according to police. The Wire reports the list also includes dacoity and criminal intimidation. Congress MP Sasikanth Senthil wrote on X on Tuesday that their bail had been refused and that courts are on vacation until 27 October. If that is right, they will spend at least another week inside.
South Western Range DIG Akhileshvar Singh told PTI that Randall was “not providing medical services” but stirring tribals up against the government. There were many doctors in Kalahandi and Rayagada, he said, and only this one had been arrested. Asked about allegations of police torture, he said the two had not raised any such complaint before the magistrate.
What happened in Kantamal
The two sides tell very different stories about April. PUCL says between 200 and 300 police entered Kantamal around 2 am, fired tear gas and beat villagers with lathis until morning, injuring more than 50 people. Three FIRs were then filed against the villagers. The police version, given to PTI, is that locals clashed with them, they used batons and tear gas to break up the crowd, and both villagers and police personnel were hurt.
Who is Dr Randall Sequeira
Randall grew up in Mumbai and studied medicine at St John’s Medical College in Bengaluru. He moved to Kalahandi more than five years ago.
“He stopped his practice, and he became a full-time movement worker,” said his friend Nilesh Mohite.
He is a member of the Medico Friend Circle and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan. Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist who studied at the same college, wrote on X about a monsoon health camp Randall held in Kutrumali village in 2018, climbing the hill to treat malnourished children. He asked doctors across the country to speak up.
From Mumbai, his mother Nancy Sequeira said in a statement that her son was fighting for the dignity of Adivasi people. “I want to let him know that his parents are with him,” she said. PUCL has demanded the release of Randall, Laxman, Lado Sikaka and Lingaraj Azad, a stop to all work at Sijimali and Kurkuti Mauja until Gram Sabhas can decide freely, and an inquiry into custodial torture.
Disclosure: Dr Sequeira had agreed to help the Karmrath reporter who spoke to him with a story on water in Sijimali, planned before his arrest.